After the Peace of Riga, he remained in the Polish Army. He became a member of the Polish equestrian team, winning many international competitions. He also took part in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam and came fourth at the prestigious Aldershot competition. In his sports career, he gained 22 gold, three silver and four bronze medals altogether.
After two days of heavy fighting against the numerically superior Soviets, on 20 September Grodno was lost and three days later gen. bryg.Wacław Przeździecki, the commander of the defense of the Grodno area, ordered all his troops to escape to neutral Lithuania.[citation needed] According to another account that order was given shortly after the Soviet invasion begun, around 17 or 18 September. In either, case, the 110th Regiment did not obey this order. The unit joined with the remnants of several routed regiments and fought its way towards the capital Warsaw.[5] It got surrounded by the Red Army in the Biebrza river area and suffered serious casualties, but managed to break through the enemy defenses.[citation needed] After that, Lieutenant Colonel Jerzy Dąbrowski, the commander of the regiment, decided his unit should disband. A group of approximately 180 men wanted to continue, and Dobrzański took command of them and led them towards Warsaw, which was under siege.[5] He named his force the "Detached Unit of the Polish Army" (Oddział Wydzielony Wojska Polskiego), a term first recorded on 24 September, when the unit was near the Woźnawieś village in the Podlasie region.[5][6]
Warsaw capitulated on 27 September, before Dobrzański and his men were able to reach it. That left him faced with three choices: disband, evacuate (via Hungary or Romania) to France, or continue the fight. Approximately 50 men volunteered to continue the fight. He led his unit southwards to try to break out and reach France.[5] On 1 October 1939 they crossed the Vistula near Dęblin and started their march towards the Holy Cross Mountains. The next day his unit, previously avoiding engaging the German units, launched its first attack, when it successfully ambushed a bogged German convoy. After that he decided to stay in the Kielce area with his unit and wait until the Allied relief came, which he expected in the spring of 1940.[5] He also swore that he would not take off his uniform until after the war.[citation needed] On 6 October the Battle of Kock ended the resistance of the last major unit of the Polish Army. With the support of the local civilian population, Hubal and his men managed to evade the Germans for several months.[7]
In March 1940 his unit inflicted heavy casualties on a number of German units in ambushes. The German authorities responded with reprisals against the civil population, burning several villages and killing an estimated 1200 civilians in what is known in the Polish historiography as the Hubal pacifications.[8][9] Due to these reprisals local sentiment turned against Hubal's unit, and the newly formed ZWZ became concerned that this would inhibit their ability to recruit. The ZWZ and the Government Delegate's Office at Home ordered Hubal to disband his unit. He refused to do so.[7]
Death and legacy
On 30 April 1940 his staff quarters, in a ravine near the village of Anielin (near Opoczno), were ambushed. During the battle Dobrzański and one of his men were killed. The Germans desecrated his body and put it on public view in the local villages.[10] They then transported it to Tomaszów Mazowiecki and either burnt it or buried it in an unknown location.[11] The remnants of the "Detached Unit of the Polish Army" continued the struggle until 25 June 1940, when it was disbanded.[10][12] The exact place of Hubal's burial remains uncertain to this day, despite efforts to locate it.[11]
In 1949 Dobrzański's son, Ludwik, emigrated to England and became a property developer. He died on 15 December 1990 in Bedford.
In 1966 Henryk Dobrzański was posthumously awarded the Golden Cross of the Virtuti Militari and promoted to colonel. Currently almost 200 organisations and institutions bear his name, including 82 Scouting groups, 31 schools and several military units. There are streets named after him in almost every Polish city. [13]
In 1973 the film Hubal, based on his resistance campaign, was released.[14]
The pseudonym "Hubal" comes from his family coat of arms.
Hubal
Hubal and his partisan unit, winter 1939
Hubal and his partisan unit, winter 1939
Hubal and his partisan unit, winter 1940
German soldiers with Hubal's body, 30 April 1940
Memorial to Henryk Dobrzański in Kielce's old cemetery
Leliwa coat of arms
Decorations
Military decorations awarded to Henyrk Dobrzański include:
^KRZYŻANOWSKI, JERZY R. (1985). Erdman, Jan (ed.). "A Tribute to Heroism and Devotion". The Polish Review. 30 (3): 291–294. ISSN0032-2970. JSTOR25778148. That unit was to become the first Polish guerilla troop, and its commander later known as Hubal has become a legend in his own time
Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm: Polish Hero Roman Rodziewicz: Fate of a Hubal Soldier in Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Postwar England. Foreword by Matt DeLaMater. Lanham, MD and Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2013, ISBN978-0-7391-7819-5.
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